^n 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  JAMESON  RAID 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT 
THE  JAMESON  RAID 

By 
JOHN  HAYS  HAMMOND 

AS    RELATED    TO 
ALLEYNE     IRELAND 


BOSTON 

MARSHALL  JONES   COMPANY 
MDCCCCXVIII 


COPYRIGHT,   I918 
BY  MARSHALL  JONES  COMPANY 


All  rights  reserved 


By  permission  of 
The  North  American  Review 


PRINTED    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES    OF    AMERICA 
BY  THE    UNIVERSITY  PRESS,    CAMBRIDGE,    MASS. 


DT 


Preface 


The  contents  of  this  volume  appeared  in 
the  August  and  September  numbers  of  the 
"North  American  Review,"  1918. 

Following  their  publication  I  received 
so  many  requests  that  a  more  permanent 
form  should  be  given  to  the  material  that 
I  have  had  this  little  volume  issued. 

I  wish  to  express  my  indebtedness  to  His 
Eminence  Cardinal  Gibbons,  to  the  Hon. 
S  William  H.  Taft,  to  the  Hon.  E.  M.  House, 
0  to  President  Arthur  T.  Hadley,  and  to  the 
^  Hon.  Oscar  S.  Straus,  for  their  permission 
C  to  print  the  letters  which  they  have  been 
^  good  enough  to  send  me  in  regard  to  "The 
Vv  Truth  About  the  Jameson  Raid." 
^^  I  take  the  occasion  also  to  acknowledge 
e  coui 
ew"  ii 
articles. 


N^  the  courtesy  of  the  "North  American  Re- 
^^view"  in  allowing  the  republication  of  the 

»  1  f-ti  r"  I  /^o 


John  Hays  Hammond. 

October,  1918. 

[v] 


402896 


Washington,  D,  C,  Oct.  24,  191 8, 

My  dear  Mr.  Hammond:  — 

I  am  very  glad  to  hear  that  your  clear,  calm,  and 
moderate  statement  of  the  injustice  and  outrage  of  the 
Kruger  Government  is  to  be  published  in  a  form  which 
will  reach  the  people  of  the  United  States. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  show  the  real 
ground  for  the  action  of  England  in  fighting  the  Boer 
War  and  in  producing  the  present  condition  of  pros- 
perity, happiness,  and  loyalty  of  the  Boer  people. 

It  is  well  to  have  the  facts  clearly  brought  out  to 
show  the  attitude  of  Germany,  which  was  of  a  piece 
with  her  foreign  policy  before  and  since,  and  the  high 
purpose  of  those  who  were  the  first  movers  towards  the 
freedom  of  the  Transvaal,  and  whose  course  is  emi- 
nently justified  by  the  result. 

Yours  very  sincerely, 

Wm.  H.  Taft. 


Cardinal's  Residence,  408  N.  Charles  St., 
Baltimore,  Oct.  16,  191 8. 
Dear   Mr.   Hammond:  — 

In  these  days  when  History  is  being  made  so  fast 
your  booklet  "  The  Truth  About  the  Jameson  Raid  " 
will  be  appreciated  by  students  who  are  investigating 
the  intrigues  which  flourished  in  so  many  parts  of  the 
world  previous  to  the  World  War,  and  which  have 
been  looked  upon  as  part  of  the  preparation  for  the 
present  struggle  to  secure  world  domination  by  the 
Central  Powers. 

Faithfully  yours, 

J.  Card.  Gibbons, 
Archbishop  of  Baltimore. 

[vi] 


Yale  University,  New  Haven,  Conn. 
President's  Office,  Oct.  4,  19 18. 

My  dear  Air.  Hammond :  — 

The  articles  on  "  The  True  Story  of  the  Jameson 
Raid,"  which  Mr.  Ireland  has  written  on  the  basis  of 
information  which  you  have  furnished,  are  of  extraor- 
dinary interest.  They  throw  light,  not  only  on  the 
circumstances  which  preceded  and  followed  the  raid 
itself,  but  also  on  the  character  of  President  Kruger's 
policy,  and  indirectly  also  on  the  international  policy 
of  Germany  as  a  whole.  This  last  aspect  of  the  matter 
gives  them  renewed  interest  today.  It  is  one  of  the 
many  pieces  of  history  which  throw  light  on  the  attempt 
of  the  German  emperor  to  establish  a  new  world  hege- 
mony, if  not  an  actual  world  empire;  and  j'ou  have 
done  good  service  in  contributing  the  testimony  of  an 
eye  witness  to  this  chapter  of  historj'. 
Very  sincerely, 
(Signed)  Arthur  T.  Hadley. 


New  York  City,  Sept.  5,  1918. 

My  dear  Mr.  Hammond:  — 

I  want  to  say  how  much  I  enjoyed  reading,  in  the 
"  North  American  Review,"  your  "  True  Story  of  the 
Jameson  Raid."  It  is  most  interesting  and  most  in- 
forming, and  3'ou  have  rendered  a  distinct  service  in 
clarifying  this  important  incident  in  international  rela- 
tionship. I  say  a  "  distinct  service  "  because  the  gen- 
eral impression  so  far  as  this  country  is  concerned  was 
detrimental  to  British  fair  play. 

Your  graphic  statement  of  this  affair,  in  which  you 
took  so  important  a  part,  furnishes  an  additional  evi- 
[vii] 


dence  of  the  Kaiser's  unconscionable  methods  and  of 
the  German  kultur  of  fraud  and  perversion. 

I  hope  that  these  articles  will  be  further  distributed 
in  book  form,  not  only  in  this  country  but  in  Great 
Britain, 

Sincerely  yours, 

Oscar  S.  Straus. 


New  York  City,  Oct.  ii,  1918. 
Dear  Mr.  Hammond:  — 

I  am  glad  that  you  are  giving  to  the  public  "  The 
True  Story  of  the  Jameson  Raid." 

It  was  one  of  the  most  dramatic  incidents  in  history, 
and  its  consequences  have  been  of  such  far-reaching 
importance  that  the  world  will  be  eager  to  know  the 
facts. 

Sincerely  yours, 

E.  M.  House. 


[  viii  ] 


The  Truth 
About  the  Jameson  Raid 

By 
JOHN    HAYS    HAMMOND 

AS    RELATED    TO 

ALLEYNE   IRELAND 

The  amazing  revelations  of  German  in- 
trigue which  within  the  past  few  months 
have  come  from  points  as  far  apart  as 
Buenos  Aires  and  Constantinople,  as  Petro- 
grad  and  Tokyo,  have  stirred  in  my  mem- 
ory the  recollection  of  a  certain  telegram 
signed  by  the  same  William,  King  of 
Prussia  and  German  Emperor,  whose  im- 
pudent and  mendacious  emissaries  have  set 
the  mark  of  indelible  infamy  on  the  brow 
of  their  Imperial  accomplice. 

"  From  Wilhelm,  Imperator,  Rex,  Ber- 
lin: to  President  Kruger,  Pretoria,  South 
African  Republic,"  so  ran  the  address,  and 
thus  the  message: 

I  tender  you  my  sincere  congratulations  that 
without  appealing  to  the  help  of  friendly 
Powers  you  and  your  people  have  been  success- 

[I] 


THE   TRUTH    ABOUT 

ful  in  opposing  with  your  own  forces  the  armed 
bands  that  have  broken  into  your  country  to 
disturb  the  peace,  in  restoring  order,  and  in 
maintaining  the  independence  of  your  country 
against  attacks  from  without. 

Like  many  of  the  German  documents 
which  have  recently  come  to  light,  this 
message  is  clothed  in  language  which  im- 
parts to  it  a  flavor  of  innocence  and  of 
sympathy.  It  is  not  until  the  surrounding 
circumstances  are  carefully  examined  that 
the  telegram  can  be  assigned  its  proper 
place  in  the  dark  record  of  German  diplo- 
macy. 

American  citizens  played  a  prominerit 
part  in  the  events-referred  taiiilhe,  Kais£^'s 
telegram,  and  the  account  of  an  eye-witness 
may  prove  of  more  than  passing  interest  at 
this  time.  The  story  carries  the  reader  to 
South  Africa,  where,  in  the  heart  of  a 
pastoral  country,  nature  has  buried  thou- 
sands of  feet  below  the  sunburnt  plain  the 
world's  greatest  store  of  gold. 

I  may  begin  my  narrative  with  a  meeting 
held  by  five  hundred  Americans  in  Johan- 
nesburg, the  mining  city  of  the  Transvaal, 
in  December,  1895.  What  we  had  met  to 
decide  was  whether  or  not  we  should  give 

[2] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

our  support  to  a  Revolution  which  was  then 
brewing  against  the  Boer  oligarchy. 

I  was  a  little  late  in  getting  there  and, 
when  I  entered,  the  meeting  was  in  dis- 
order. Some  of  President  Kruger's  spies 
had  managed  to  gain  admittance,  and  the 
disturbance  they  made  was  so  great  that  the 
Chairman,  Captain  Mein  —  an  American 
and  manager  of  the  celebrated  Robinson 
mine  —  was  about  to  announce  an  adjourn- 
ment. I  walked  rapidly  up  the  aisle, 
mounted  the  platform,  and  secured  a  hear- 
ing. I_to  Id  jhe_  row^j^LjhaM^ 
any^rnare  trouhlg  T  'd  have  them  thrown 
out.  Then  I  explained  the  exact  situation 
which  confronted  us. 

Our  grievances  were  so  well  known  that 
there  was  no  need  for  me  to  enlarge  upon 
them ;  all  I  had  to  do  was  to  take  the  sense 
of  those  present — and  every  class  of  Amer- 
ican was  represented  —  on  the  single  ques- 
tion whether  the  point  had  not  been  reached 
to  which  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  referred  when  they  said: 

...  all  experience  hath  shewn,  that  man- 
kind are  more  disposed  to  suffer,  while  evils 
are  sufferable,  than  to  right  themselves  by 
abolishing  the  forms  to  which  they  are  accus- 
tomed.    But,  when  a  long  train  of  abuses  and 

[3] 


THE   TRUTH   ABOUT 

usurpations,  pursuing  invariably  the  same  Ob- 
ject evinces  a  design  to  reduce  them  under 
absolute  Despotism,  it  is  their  right,  it  is  their 
duty,  to  throw  off  such  Government,  and  to 
provide  new  Guards  for  their  future  security. 

Nothing  is  to  be  found  in  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  limiting  this  prin- 
ciple by  latitude,  by  longitude,  or  by  cir- 
cumstance: it  was  a  clean-cut  hereditary 
issue,  to  be  faced  by  us  Americans  then  and 
there. 

The  efforts  of  Pre^id^nt  Knigpr's  sprrpt 
agentsTaniong'whom  there  were  many  Ger- 
mansTTTad  been  directed  foi_a  long  time  to 
heading  off  theRevolution  by  sowing  dis- 
S^ensjon  in  tb^  r^pks  of  the,  mining  mm- 
munity,  and  there  was  some  danger  that 
these  attempts  might  _su££££dw  The  in- 
genious plan  was  followed  of  telling  the 
American  and  other  non-British  immi- 
grants that  the  whole  affair  was  nothing 
but  an  English  plot  to  induce  us  to  spend 
our  money  and  to  shed  our  blood  in  order 
that  the  country  should  be  brought  under 
the  British  flag. 

For  the  Americans  the  whole  thing  hung 
on  the  question  of  the  flag;  and  I  knew  very 
well  that  there  was  but  one  way  to  secure 

[4] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

American  support  for  the  Revolution  and 
at  the  same  time  to  establish  our  action 
as  a  genuine  internal  revolt  having  no  ob- 
ject ulterior  to  that  of  destroying  the  nar- 
row Boer  oligarchy,  then  at  the  height  of 
its  malign  and  corrupt  power,  and  of  setting 
up  in  its  place  a  truly  representative  de- 
mocracy on  the  American  model.  So  I 
made  it  clear  that  if  the  worst  came  to  the 
worst  and  we  were  driven  to  resort  to 
violence,  it  was  under  the  Boer  flag  that  we 
would  fight,  and  that  we  should  have  at 
least  the  sympathy  of  many  progressive 
young  Boers  who  were  as  disgusted  as  we 
were  with  the  infamous  condition  into 
which  the  country  had  been  brought  by 
Paul  Kruger  and  his  Dutch  and  German 
satellites,  and  had  declared  that  they  would 
not  bear  arms  against  the  Johannesburgers 
if  the  city  were  attacked. 

I  concluded  my  speech  by  saying,  "  I 
will  shoot jijiy  man  who  hoists  any  flag  but 
the  Bo^r^^^,"  an  announcement  which  was 
vigorously  applauded.  Out  of  more  than 
five  hundred  Americans  present  all  but 
five  voted  to  take  up-ai^ms--agaiasljCruger ; 
and  immediately  on  the  adjournment  of  the 
meeting  we  organized  the  George  Wash- 

[5] 


THE   TRUTH    ABOUT 

ington  Corps  and  pledged  ourselves  to  the 
Revolutionary  caused 

What  the  Revolution  was  about,  how  it 
failed,  how  the  leaders,  including  myself, 
were  sentenced  to  death,  how  the  death- 
penalty  was  commutedfjrowour  point  of 
-jyiew  was  vindj£ate4.by  the^oer  Wa  rand 
-i)y  Englandijneasures  aTter  the^  country 
came  under  the  BritisKTlag  is  what  I  pur- 
pose  to  tell  in  the  following  pages. 

When  news  of  the  Jameson  Raid  ap- 
peared in  thousands  of  papers  in  all  parts 
of  the  world  on  Tuesday,  December  31, 
1895,  the  general  impression  was  created 
that  a  swashbuckling  Englishman  had  at- 
tempted to  overthrow  the  Government  of 
the  South  African  Republic  in  order  to  add 
its  territory  to  the  British  Empire.  It  was 
not  unnatural  that  this  view  of  the  situation 
should  have  aroused  a  widespread  feeling 
of  indignation,  and  that  an  almost  unani- 
mous expression  of  sympathy  with  the 
Boers  should  have  marked  the  press  com- 
ment in  the  United  States  and  on  the  Con- 
tinent of  Europe. 

The  outbreak  of  the  South  African  War 
four  years  later  revived  in  the  public  mem- 
ory  the   forgotten   incident   of   the    Raid, 

[6] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

furnished  prejudice  or  ignorance  with 
fresh  material  for  an  anti-British  propa- 
ganda, gave  to  pro-Boer  sentiment  a  new 
and  vigorous  lease  of  life,  and  confirmed  in 
their  opinion  those  who  had  seen  in  the 
Jameson  Raid  nothing  but  a  brutal  act  of 
aggressive  imperialism. 

Nothing  could  be  more  grotesque  than 
the  effort  which  was  made  to  interpret 
the  Johannesburg  reform  movement  —  of 
which  the  Jameson  Raid  was  no  more  than 
a  deplorable  incident  —  as  an  expression  of 
England's  imperial  policy.  It  was  not  the 
enlightened  imperialism  of  "England  but 
the  benighted -provInHilismZSLZKruger 
I  which  created  in  South  Africa  that  pro- 
fguad— xiis£antent,  thaj  J)]tter  senss.  _  oi  mZ 
jjustice  _which  drove  jhe^jpopulation  of 
I  Johannesburg  to  seek  througJL-the  -agency 
(<ill_an  internal  revolution  those__iinifiler- 
demo c ratic_rigKts  which  hi\A  heen-d^w^A 
alike  to  their  respectful  petitions  and  to 
their  consUtutional  proitests. 
"As  I  was  one  ^f  the  four  members  of 
the  Reform  Committee  sentenced  to  death 
by  Kruger's  specially  imported  "hanging 
judge,"  Gregorowski,  it  will  be  readily 
believed  that  I  retain  a  very  lively  recol- 

[7] 


THE   TRUTH    ABOUT 

lection  of  those  exciting  times.  Where  my 
memory  flags  I  can  fortunately  refresh  it 
by  reference  to  my  wife's  little  volume, 
"A  Woman's  Part  in  a  Revolution"  —  a 
diary  unfaithful  only  when  its  authoress 
fails  to  record  the  unwavering  support  and 
the  devoted  efforts  which  she  brought  to  the 
aid  and  comfort  of  us  Americans  during 
events  which  might  well  have  unnerved  a 
woman  who  was  soon  to  become  a  mother. 
I  went  out  to  South  Africa  in  1893  as 
consulting  engineer  to  the  firm  of  Barnato 
Brothers,  one  of  the  largest  mine-owners 
in  the  Transvaal;  but  within  a  yeaL  Mr. 
Cecil  Rhodes,  at  that  time  Prime  Minister 
of  Cape  Colony,  ottered  me_j._gQsrtron  of 
wider  scope  a7id~Tnterest  in  connection  witl 
the  general  developmentof__thejimerar. 
deposits  in  Rhodesia  controlled  by  the 
British  South  Africa  Company,  and  the 
mines  at  Johannesburg  of  the  Goldfields  of 
South  Africa,  of  which  he  was  the  Manag- 
ing Director  and  the  moving  spirit.  This 
offer  I  was  glad  to  accept,  as  I  knew  Rhodes 
to  be  a  man  of  large  views  and  progressive 
methods;  and  his  reputation,  great  as  it  was 
throughout  the  British  Empire,  was  in 
nothing  greater  than  in  the  staunch  backing 

[8] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

he  afforded  to  men  who  earned  his  con- 
fidence. 

My  early  work  in  the  Transvaal  was 
such  as  falls  to  the  lot  of  any  consulting 
engineer  in  the  gold-fields;  a.DiLI  was  too 

bus^Linvestigating — the pra£licability    of 

deep-level  mining — a  possibility  then'gen- 
erally  regarded  as  too  remote  for  serious 
consideration  —  to  pay  any  attention  to 
local  political  conditions.  But  as  my  field 
of  observation  broadened  and  my  daily 
routine  gave  me  an  increasing  familiarity 
with  the  economic  problems  of  gold-mining 
in  the  Transvaal  the  conviction  was  forced 
upon  me  that  the  difficulties  which  the  in- 
dustry faced  were  not  due  to  any  of  those 
technical  obstacles  which  engineers  are  em- 
ployed to  overcome  but  to  obstructions 
deliberately  placed  in  the  way  of  the  min- 
ing community  by  the  Boer  Government. 

The  circumstances  cannot  be  rightly  un- 
derstood unless  the  reader  ha<;  b^f^*"^  him 
Ge^toift-fundamental  f  acts-about  the  capi^al- 
ists,  the  mining  population,  and  the  Boers  — 
the  chief  groups  concerned  in  the  brief  but 
dramatic  occurrences  which  involved  a 
large  body  of  Americans  in  an  abortive 
revolution  on  the  other  side  of  the  globe. 

[9] 


THE   TRUTH    ABOUT 

>  The  idea  that  "capitalist"  and  "rascal" 
are  interchangeable  terms  is  one  originally 
advanced  by  the  anarchists,  later  taken  by 
the  I.  W.  W.,  and  since  1912  sedulously 
employed  by  many  blatant  politicians  in 
the  United  States.  The  question  addressed 
to  capitalists  seeking  protection  from  the 
American  Government  for  their  legitimate 
business  interests  in  Mexico  has  been: 
"What  are  you  doing  down^  there?  No 
one  asked  you  T(T  go  there ;  and  if  you  don't 
like'it,  wIiy~~don't  you  get  out?  YoiT^re 
Qnlydown  there  to  ma^ejiion^y_anyhowiIl.^ 

The  same  question  was  asked  the  capital- 
ists who  provided  the  money  which  raised 
the  Transvaal  from  the  position  of  a  bank- 
rupt State,  dependent  upon  cattle-grazing 
and  primitive  agriculture,  to  that  of  a 
wealthy  country  entering  with  every  pros- 
pect of  success  upon  a  career  of  modern 
development. 

Leaving  on  one  side  the  broad  issue 
between  those  who  describe  as  honest  and 
praiseworthy  and  those  who  stigmatize  as 
dishonest  and  contemptible  the  employ- 
ment of  capital  to  make  the  world's  re- 
sources available  for  the  world's  use,  the 
case  of  the  Transvaal  is  peculiar  in  this, 

[10] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

that    President    Kruger    issued    a    formal, 
public  invitation  to  English  capitalists,  in 
which  he  urged  them  to  come  to  his  country  j/^^  ^  /^ 
and  invest  their  money  in  its  development,  [^ 

promising  them  in  return  the  protection  of  X\^^\<io 
their  interests,  and  a  fair  influence  in  the  C  y;w?^'^ 
government.  It  w^as  this  invitation,  pub- 
lished in  the  London  press  in  1884,  which 
overcame  the  reluctance  of  English  capital, 
after  the  Boer  War  of  1881,  to  seek  em- 
ployment in  the  Transvaal. 

It  is  a  commonjielusion  that  capitalists 
findjomething  peculiarly  attractive  in  war. 
This  charge  may  be  true  when  it  is  applied 
to  the  manufacturers  of  war  material;  but 
a  moment's  reflection  should  suffice  to  con- 
vince any  intelligent  man  that  disorder, 
destruction,  and  financial  panic  —  the  in- 
separable companions  of  armed  conflict  — 
are  the  very  things  of  which  capital  in 
general  is  most  afraid;  in  fact,  the  timidity 
of  capital  has  become  proverbial. 

M^,  -work  during  the  past  thirty  years 
has  brought  me  in  contact  with  many  of 
the  world's  largest  capitalists  —  American, 
English,  French,  Dutch,  Belgian,  Cana- 
dian, Australian,  and  German  —  and  upon 
my  advice  many  millions  of  dollars  have 

[II] 


THE   TRUTH    ABOUT 

been  invested  in  a  score  of  countries.  I 
can  testiiy4hat,  so  far  as  my  own  experience 
goes,  I^ave  never  met  a  capitalist  whose 
attitude  tomrds  war  wa£]nottha"nor  th  e 
average  man,  namely,  thaFlt  was  thg_Tast 
and  most  desperate  expedient  for  the 
remedy  of  intolerable  abuses.  To  this  rule 
the  capitalists  of  the  Transvaal  were  no 
exceptions;  and  it  was  only  when  long-con- 
tinued misgovernment  had  been  crowned 
by  an  open  challenge  from  the  Boers  to 
rise  and  fight  for  our  rights  if  we  thought 
they  were  worth  it,  it  was  not  until  Presi- 
dent Kruger  had  declared  that  the  reforms 
we  had  petitioned  for  would  be  granted 
only  over  his  dead  body,  that  thevmine- 
owners  began  to  turn  their  thoughts  in  the 
direction  of  revolt. 

Tp2e_diaxaile^jif-lhe-JXLUiiiig4i^ 
of— j4DJaajin£abin;^_Jias__beeii__^^  o  d 

when  it  has  not  been  deliberately_J2iisre^-. 
risented.  ^  The  popular  Arrierican  concep- 
tion of  a  new  mining  community  is  largely 
based  upon  our  recollection  of  Bret  Harte's 
heroes.  For  an  imaginative  and  sensation- 
loving  people  it  was  both  easy  and  agree- 
able to  transfer  to  South  Africa  the  wild 
life  of  Red  Gulch  and  to  fill  the  stage  with 

[12] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

a  lawless  and  violent  mob  which,  in  the 
intervals  between  working  their  claims 
and  murdering  one  another,  found  time 
to  drink,  to  gamble  and,  occasionally,  to 
sleep. 

/  Nothiiig^^ould^be-less^like- the  humdrum 
/EQUtine^of_the_Rand.  Johannesburg  was 
nmck^more  like  a  wealthy  manufacturing 
I  town  thana  traditional  mining  camp. 
There  wereTTndeecl,  no  miners,^  the  word 
was  understood  out  West  in  the  fifties;  and 
our  gold  mines  could  be  described  with 
greater  accuracy  as  gold  factories.  The 
personnel  of  the  mines  consisted  of  a  few 
dozen  mining  engineers,  a  few  score  highly 
skilled  mechanics,  a  few  hundred  white 
miners  —  chiefly  American,  Scotch,  Welsh, 
and  Cornish  —  and  many  thousands  of 
Kaffir  laborers. 

The  life  was  such  as  might  be  found  in 
hundredi~of  long-settled  cornmunities  in 
_fc^Eastern  States^  Bankers,  business  men, 
mining  engineers,  physicians,  surgeons, 
with  their  wives  and  children,  made  up  the 
"society"  of  the  place;  and  as  these  pro- 
fessional men,  but  especially  the  mining 
engineers,  were  of  the  highest  standing  in 
their  several  fields,  and  received  munificent 

[13] 


THE   TRUTH    ABOUT 

salaries,  our  social  existence  lacked  neither 
elegance  nor  culture.  What  lent  an  ad- 
ditional charm  to  our  leisure  was  the  con- 
stant stream  of  distinguished  visitors  which 
passed  through  the  town.  It  was  not  a 
mere  question  of  "  Little  Lords  looking  for 
Big  Game" — to  qu^te~my  wife's  phrarse  — 
but  of  statesmen,  scientists,  authors,  ex- 
plorers, colonial  administrators,  on  their 
way  to  or  from  Europe,  America,  India, 
Australia,  China,  the  Cape,  and  Rhodesia. 

.MrSi_^EIammQiid_-aiid--t--a4^--a^f=ee4--tha^t 
•npith^4Mfh-London  noLin  Paris._jieilher  in 
New  ^^fk-4^o^i-iiL__Washington,  have  we 
found— a_jQcial  life  which  better  deserved 
the  prais£__ol_-bdng  brillian^.  It  was^a 
brilliance,  too,  which  owed  everything  to 
the  personalties  of  the  men  and  women  and 
nothing  to  the  extraneous  elements  of  pomp 
and  circumstance. 

Before  passing  to  another  subject  I  wish 
to  lay  particular  emphasis  on  the  fact  that 
from  the  richest  capitalist  to  the  well-paid 
mechanic  the  white  population  was  a  do- 
mestic group,  living  not  in  bachelor's 
quarters  but  in  homes. 

The  population  of  the  Transvaal  was,  at 
the  time  of  which  I  speak,  made  up  of  about 

[14] 


1 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

750,000  blacks  and  about  250,000  whites, 
the     Boers     numbering    not    more     than 
75,000.     ]^£L-the  hands  of  the  Boers  —  that 
is  tosay^in  the  hands  of  less  than  one-tenth 
bt  the  population  —  was  concentrated  the 
whole  power  or  the  governrnent,   and  all 
political"  rights.     ljTe_r£al-&mialiQrLjJi_jhe 
'Vkepublic'^  cehtereda  round  the  circum-^ 
stance  that  75,000^  iJoersT  paving  one-tentli^ 
of  the  taxes,  exercised  a  complete  and  ex-  L 
elusive    sway    over    175,000    white    immi-     j^  ^^ 
grants,  who  paid  nine-tenths  of  the  taxes     y^^^^- 
without  having  a  word  to  say  as  to  how  ^"^  " 
taxation  should  be  levied  or  its  proceeds      1 
expended.  ^^ 

The   Boers   were   by   no   means   of   one    ^    '^''^ 
mind  as  to  the  justice  or  the  expediency  of      "^  ^^ 
this  system.     On  the  one  side  was  a  large    "M'^f^ 
majority  of  the  Boers   (the  reactionary  or 
dopper  party) ,  with  Paul  Kruger  at  its  head, 
which  held  very  tenaciously  to  the  view 
that  having,  by  fair  promises,  attracted  to 
the  country  an  immense  flow  of  capital,  and 
this  capital  being  invested  in  immovable 
property,  such  as  land,  buildings  and  ma- 
chinery, jJL.ffiasainnecessary  to  fulfin  pledges 
rriajHp  fo  H  pnpulation  whjch  couldTeave  the 
country  only  at  the  price  of  financial  ruin, 


THE   TRUTH   ABOUT 

and  which,  in  order  to  avoid  that  ruin, 
would  remain  and  submit  to  any  degree 
of  oppression  and  misrule.  > 

On  the  other  side  was  a  small  minority, 
headed  by  General  Joubert.  The  attitude 
of  this  minority  was  faithfully  represented 
in  a  speech  made  before  the  Upper  Cham- 
ber of  the  Transvaal  Legislature  in  August, 
1895,  by  a  Mr.  Jeppe,  a  Boer.  The  oc- 
casion was  the  presentation  of  a  Petition 
signed  by  35,483  Uitlanders  (the  name 
given  by  the  Boers  to  the  immigrant 
population)  praying  that  political  repre- 
sentation might  be  granted  to  them.  In 
the  course  of  his  speech  Mr.  Jeppe  said: 

This  petition  has  been,  practically,  signed 
by  the  entire  population  of  the  Rand.  It  con- 
tains the  name  of  the  millionaire  capitalLst^pn 
tbe„5anie_page~as  that  oFthe  miner,  that  of  the 
owner  of  iiajf  a  district  next  to  that  o^f  a  clerk. 
_n^mbraces  also  all  nationalities.  And  it  bears, 
too,  the  signatures  of  sorrie  who  have  been 
born  in  this  country,  who  know  no  other  father- 
land than  this  Republic,  but^jadiom  the  law  re- 
I  gards  as^strangers .  Then,  too,  are  th^.  n e w- 
cornfiJis.  They  have  settled  for  good.  They 
have  built  Johannesburg,  one  of  the  wonders 
of  the  age.  They  own  half  the  soil,  thexpay 
at^i£ast__thjree-q[uarters  of  the  taxes.  Nor  are 
they  personswho  belong  to  a  subservient  race. 

[16] 


THE   JAMESON    '   \ID 

They  come  from  countries  where  they  freely 
exercised  political  rights,  which  can  never  be 
long  denied  to  free-born  men. 

Da re_jBZ£_ refer   them    to    the    present    law,   •]       I      i 

which  first  expects  them  to  wait  for  fourteen  jii^ i_ 

'  yeart),  and  eveiithen  pledges  itself  t6~nothmg?  )^i&c^J^ 
Jt  is  a  law  whicli  denies  all  rights  even  to  their 
children  born  in  this  country.  What  will  be- 
come oFus  or  our  children_mijiie^day  when  we 
"sBaHiAid  oiir-seTves  m  a~minQritY_of  perhap^s 
one  in  twenty,  without  a  sjngjp  friVnd  amnngQt- 
the  other  nineteen,  among  those  who  will  then 
tell  us  they  wished  to  be  brothers,  but  we  by 
our  own  act  made  them  strangers  in  the  Re- 
public, Old  as  the  world  is,  has  any  attempt 
like  ours  ever  succeeded  for  long? 

The  foregoing  statement  by  a  Boer  mem- 
ber of  the  Boer  Legislature  presents  only 
the  political  side  of  the  Uitlander  case, 
and  it  must  be  supplemented  by  a  recital 
of  the  grievances  out  of  which  the  political 
agitation  arose.  I-;t--is— essenti a_i_that  the 
read^£_s_houliLjinderstand  that  the  Reform 
jno_Yement  in  the  Transvaal  vyas  the  di reef 
outcome  of  the  conviction  that  so  long  jis^ 
th e  yyhole^joTilicarand^adniijii strati ue-Jiiar 
chinery  of  thecountry  vs^as  controlled  by  the 
Ropr<;  nci  remedy"would  be  found  for  the 
abu&es_irom  whichwe_suffered_^ 

I  am  positive  that  if  Kruger  had  been 

[17] 


^ 

i^ 


THE   TRUTH    ABOUT 

content  to  give  Johannesburg  decent  gov- 

s^ernment  the   demand   for   poHtical   rights 

\^         ^\j  would  have  been  postponed  for  many  years 

^"^^  and,  indeed,  might  never  have  been  madeV 

(^     ^   '>J^Nor^waj_jt_a__^uestiQn   of   a   number  m 

^     i     ^  jBrTtishers  usirig^_th£^gTievances  as  an  excuse 

<s-^-j^  for  brin^ingthe  country  underjlie-JSxitish 

flag,  forthere  vs^a^  a  large^number  ofArner-, 

^  ^  _j>      Jeans  onthejpot,  v\rho"aFnotimecQuM^^ 

T^H     mTirh   ^ym££fhjr~wrFK     sucE     aT^pTO- 

gramme,  ^ndwho^,  oiTaccount  oTtheTecent 
trouble  between  England  and  the  United 
States  over  the  Venezuelan  boundary,  were 
strongly  averse  to  giving  the  Reform  move- 
ment an  exclusively  English  complexion. 

Our  grievances  mayjhus  be  summarized ; 
and^ey~rnust~beinterpreted  in  the  light 
of  the  fact  that  the  Uitlanders  had  pur- 
chased from  the  Boers  more  than  one-half 
of  the  land  of  the  Transvaal,  _that_they 
owned  more  than  nine-tenths  of__the^rop- 
ertyTlHaFlhey  paid^^^Qg^SanTnine^tgnths 
of  alj_  the  taxes  raisedin  thc_country^  and 
that__iii__spite  of  the  squandering^  its 
revenues  the  Transvaal  Government  had 
accumulated  in  its  Treasury  more  than  six 
millions  of  dollars. 

^Ve  suffered  from  a  hi^h__d£ath-rate 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

and  from  much  sickness  through  thelack 
j)f  a   sewage  system   and  of  a  clean   watej 
supply. 

2.    Out  of  $310,000  allotted  in  Johannes- 
burg for  education  lessjhan  $4.000 jyasap- 

jTJjed    to   the.    TTiflanrlpr   rhildrpn^    nUhnngh 

they  outnumbered  the  Boer  children  in  the 
town,  and  their  parents  supplieH  ±he  money 
which    hnjlf    the    schools    an( 


them.  The  actual  figures  worked  out  at 
about  fifty  cents  a  head  for  our  children 
and  $40  a  head  for  the  Boer  children;  and  -^ 

at  that,  our  children  were  not  allowed  to     M^Nk^^- 
use  or  study  English  in  the  schools.    This  ^^,.^r    / 
caused  the  deepest  resentment,  for  our  chil-       ^  >r 
dren  heard  no  language  but  Dutch  in  the         ^ 
schools,  and  they  were  being  gradually  es- 
tranged from  the  ideals  which  have  been 
perpetuated  by  English  speech. 

3.  Ajjhmighwg_hajJ:HiiJ4:-4he  city  and 
lound  pra^icallyall  the  money  to  run  it, 
we  had  no  voice  whatever  in  its~"govern- 
menf,  were  dominafpH  hy__a_j-nrnijTt_  a n H 
violent  Boer  police^  and  were  denied  a  free 
press  and  the  right  of  public  meeting. 

4.  The  mining  industry  was  harassed^by 
Government  monopolies  which  forcedup 
the  coslot  livmg~and  ofworking  the  mines, 

[19] 


THE   TRUTH    ABOUT 

and  which  were  farmed  out  with  the  object 
olMtingTEF^pockets^ot  KrugerTIavo rites. 
Of  these  rnonopoTies~Me~oTTh^lSosrl)'ur- 
densome  was  that  which  compelled  us  to 
purchase  our  dynamite  from  a  single  privi- 
leged firm,  which  paid  a  royalty  to  certain 
members  of  the  Transvaal  Government. 
Not  only  were  we  forced  to  pay  about  three 
million  dollars  a  year  tribute  in  the  form  of 
excess  profits  to  the  holder  of  the  monopoly, 
but  the  quality  of  the  dynamite  was  so 
poor  that  fatal  accidents  were  of  common 
occurrence. 

5.  Xte-X^lroad^olj^y_oiJlLe-J^asYaaI 
was  so_  framed  a^_Jo  enable  the  rajlro ad 
monopoly  to  charge  extortionale—ixeigbt 
rates.  I  Johannesburg  was  connected  with 
the  Cape  Colony-Free  State  railroad,  over 
which  most  of  our  supplies  came,  by  a  line 
fifty  miles  long  under  the  control  of  the 
Netherlands  South  Africa  Railway  Com- 
pany, whose  shareholders  were  entirely 
German,  Dutch,  and  Boer.  So  high  was 
the  freight  schedule  on  this  line  that  it  was 
cheaper  for  us  to  unload  our  consignments 
at  railhead  of  the  Cape  Line,  re-load  them 
into  ox-wagons,  and  so  take  them  to  Johan- 
nesburg across  the  drifts,  or  fords,  by  which 
[20] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

alone  the  Vaal  River  could  be  crossed.  In 
order  to  deprive  us  of  this  means  of  getting 
ourselves  out  of  the  clutches  of  his  rail- 
road monopoly,  Kruger  closed  the  drifts 
on  October  i,  1895.  But  in  doing  this  he 
over-reached  himself.  His  action  was  in 
clear  defiance  of  his  treaty  obligations 
to  England;  and  after  consultation  with 
the  Government  of  Cape  Colony  (which 
pledged  itself  to  support  England  with 
men  and  money  if  it  became  necessary  to 
enforce  her  treaty  rights)  the  British  Gov- 
ernment informed  Pretoria  that  the  drifts 
must  be  reopened  and  must  remain  open. 
In  response  to  this  ultimatum  Kruger 
rescinded  his  order. 

6.  In  the  interest  of  the  liquor  monopoly       ^^ 
the  Boer  Government  allowed  an  unlimited 
amount  of  cheap  and  fiery  spirits  to  be  sold 

to  the  Kaffirs.    There  was,  in  consequence,  \ 

a  great  deal  of  drunkenness   among  our  ^^ 
laborers;   and   as  the  liquor  dealers  were Jjh^.A  • 

allowed  to  sell  this  wretched  stufif  at  the  \y    Ar 

mouth  of  the  mines  to  men  about  to  go  Vf>w^ 

down  the  shafts,  there  was  much  loss  of  f     A 

life  and  of  property  from  this  cause.  t^* 

7.  President  Kruger  and  his  Executive 
Council  exerted  a  constant  pressure  upon 

[21] 


THE   TRUTH   ABOUT 

the  judges  of  the  Transvaal  Supreme  Court, 
the  only  barrier  which  stood  between  the 
Johannesburgers  and  the  rule  of  an  un- 
bridled despotism.  In  1897  the  condition 
became  so  scandalous  that  the  Boer  judges 
themselves  closed  the  court,  declaring  that 
it  was  impossible  to  administer  justice 
under  the  coercion  to  which  they  were 
subjected  by  the  executive. 

8.  The  Boers  asserted  the  right  to  draft 
for  service  in  their  wars  against  the  natives 
those  very  Americans  to  whom  they  denied 
the  right  of  citizenship.  It  was  through  a 
little  ruse  on  my  part  that  this  right  to  con- 
script Americans  was  never  enforced.  I 
called  a  meeting  one  night  to  which  I  in- 
vited the  managers  and  other  American 
officials  of  the  mines  under  my  manage- 
ment. The  meeting  was  supposed  to  be  a 
secret  one,  but  we  took  care  to  have  present 
an  American  whom  we  knew  to  be  a  paid 
spy  of  the  Boer  Government^.;^_^We  passed 
a  unanimous  resolution  that  we  would  resist 
all  efforts  of  the  Boers  to  send  us  to  the 
front  to  fight  the  Kaffirs,  and  that  if,  in  face 
of  our  protests,  we  were  drafted,  our  first 
shots  would  be  fired  at  the  Boer  officers. 
This  resolution  was  duly  reported  by  the 
[22] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

contemptible  American  spy,  and  no  effort 
was  ever  made  to  conscript  us.  /In  this  we 
were  more  fortunate  than  the  British,  of 
whom  a  number  were  forced  into  the  Boer 
Army^ 

To  this  brief  survey  of  our  grievances 
I  must  add  a  few  words  about  a  man  whose 
cultivated  mind  and  legal  talents  were  em- 
ployed  by   Kruger   to   furnish   the   finesse      / 
which  was  entirely  foreign  to  his  own  char-     / 
acter.     The  agreeable  but  sinister  person-V 
ality  of   Dr.   Leyds,   the  Transvaal   State/X 
Attorney,   was   almost   as   well   known   as      -^ 
that  of  his  Boer  master.     I  mention  him 
here  because  it  was  a  matter  of  common 
knowledge  that  he  was  the  go-between  of 
Kruger  and  the  Kaiser.     On  January  27, 
1895,    Kruger,    speaking   at   a   banquet   in 
honor  of  the   Kaiser's  birthday,   said:   "I 
shall  ever  promote  the  interests  of   Ger- 
many .  .  .  the  time  has  come  to  knit  ties  of 
the    closest    friendship    between    Germany 
and  the  South  African  Republic." 

Shortly  after  this  Dr.  Leyds  went  to 
Berlin  —  to  have  his  throat  examined!  — 
and  he  was  in  Berlin  when  the  Kaiser  sent 
the  telegram  of  which  I  have  already 
spoken. 

[23] 


^ 


THE   TRUTH   ABOUT 

That  part  of  the  Kaiser-Kruger  plot 
which  related  to  keeping  the  Uitlanders  in 
a  state  of  simmering  revolt,  Dr.  Leyds 
handled  with  skill  and  success.  The  other 
part,  Germany's  proposal  to  send  troops  to 
the  Transvaal  at  the  time  of  the  Jameson 
Raid,  went  to  pieces  when  England  mobil- 
ized her  flying  squadron  after  the  pub- 
lication of  the  Kaiser-Kruger  telegram. 
o  Kruger  never  forgave  the  Kaiser  for  this 
back-down.  He  confided  to  a  friend  the 
^  opinion  that  there  was  no  profit  in  dealing 
^^with  a  monarch  who  allowed  his  foreign 
policy  to  be  dictated  by  his  grandmother. 

During  1895  general  conditions  in  the 
Transvaal  went  from  bad  to  worse.  The 
Boers  became  ever  more  arbitrary  and  over- 
bearing; and  their  intentions  showed  up 
very  clearly  when  they  began  to  construct 
forts  dominating  the  city  of  Johannesburg. 
One  deputation  after  another  was  sent  to 
Kruger  to  state  our  grievances,  but  with- 
out effect.  Finally  he  told  one  deputation 
that  he  would  make  no  promises  of  any 
kind,  and  he  brought  the  interview  to  a 
close  by  saying:  "If  you  want  your  griev- 
ances redressed,  why  don't  you  get  guns 
and  fight  for  what  you  call  your  rights?" 

[24] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

We  took  him  at  his  word. 

This  brings  me  to  the  story  of  the  Jame- 
son Raid,  an  episode  about  which  there  has 
always  been  much  confusion  in  the  public 
mind.  The  reason  why  the  full  facts  were 
not  brought  to  light  by  the  two  official 
investigations  of  the  circumstances  —  one 
held  in  Cape  Town  and  the  other  in  Lon- 
don—  was  that  one  of  the  conditions  on 
which  the  four  leaders  of  the  Johannesburg 
end  of  the  affair,  and  others  arrested  at  that 
time,  had  their  death  sentences  commuted, 
was  a  solemn  pledge  to  the  Boer  Govern 
ment  that  for  three  years  they  would  re- 
main silent  upon  all  questions  relating  to 
Transvaal  politics.  Before  this  pledge  had 
expired,  all  interest  in  the  Raid  had  been 
swamped  by  the  outbreak  of  the  South 
African  War,  and  in  the  meantime  the 
Boers  had  spent  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
dollars  (British  and  American  dollars)  in 
a  world-wide  propaganda  of  misrepre- 
sentation. 

As  soon  as  it  became  clear  that  an  internal 
Revolution  offered  the  only  way  out  of  our 
difficulties,  a  secret  Committee  was  formed 
for  the  purpose  of  securing  arms  and  of 
working  out  the  details  of  our  plan.    This 

[25] 


THE    TRUTH    ABOUT 

Committee  consisted  of  Colonel  Frank 
Rhodes  —  a  brother  of  Cecil  Rhodes,  and 
one  of  the  noblest  men  I  have  ever  met 
—  Lionel  Phillips,  Percy  FitzPatrick, 
Wools-Sampson,  George  Farrar,  and  my- 
self. 

Our  general  scheme  was  to  get  some 
thousands  of  guns  into  Johannesburg,  and 
then,  on  some  dark  night,  to  take  Pretoria, 
the  Boer  Capital  about  thirty-five  miles 
north  of  Johannesburg,  seize  the  arsenal, 
carry  Kruger  off  with  us,  and  to  negotiate 
at  leisure  for  the  redress  of  our  grievances 
and  for  those  constitutional  changes  which 
would  make  the  Transvaal  a  Republic 
based  upon  a  reasonable  franchise  law  ap- 
plicable to  all  its  white  inhabitants.  Among 
the  tasks  allotted  to  me  was  to  arrange  for 
the  importation  of  arms,  for  the  taking  of 
Pretoria  and  the  capture  of  Kruger. 

In  view  of  what  actually  happened,  this 
sounds  like  a  very  wild  undertaking;  but 
I  am  satisfied  that  if  it  had  not  been  for  the 
premature  movement  of  Dr.  Jameson's 
force  (which  I  will  describe  later)  we 
would  have  had  a  successful  and  bloodless 
Revolution,  and  that  the  Union  of  South 
Africa  would  have  been  formed  without 
[26] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

the  fighting  of  the  Boer  War  and  without 
the  Transvaal  and  the  Orange  Free  State 
passing  under  the  British  flag. 

Everything  was  in  our  favor.  The  Uit- 
landers  outnumbered  the  Boers,  the  pro- 
ject of  overawing  Johannesburg  by  the 
construction  of  modern  forts  commanding 
the  town  was  only  in  its  initial  stages,  we 
had  the  sympathy  of  a  considerable  propor- 
tion of  the  younger  burghers,  and  the  min- 
ing capitalists  who  had  hitherto  frowned 
upon  every  suggestion  of  revolt  had  come 
round  to  our  point  of  view  and  were  ready 
to  finance  the  Revolution. 

Two  things  were  considered  absolutely 
necessary  for  the  carrying  out  of  our  aims. 
One  was  the  importation  of  arms,  the  other 
was  some  arrangement  which  would  insure 
the  safety  of  our  women  and  children  if 
anything  went  wrong  and  there  was  a 
prospect  of  heavy  fighting  in  Johannesburg. 

The  first  of  these  matters  was  easy  to 
arrange  but  slow  in  execution,  for  the  guns 
had  to  be  smuggled  in  a  few  at  a  time;  the 
second  required  the  greatest  care  and  pre- 
sented the  greatest  difhculties. 

Our  arms  and  ammunition  were  smug- 
gled in  by  a  small  group  of  Americans,  of 

[27] 


THE   TRUTH    ABOUT 

whom  the  most  active  were  Mr,  Gardner 
Williams,  manager  of  the  famous  De  Beers 
diamond  mines  at  Kimberley;  Mr.  La- 
bram,  a  mining  engineer  of  a  deservedly 
high  reputation,  and  myself.  They  were 
imported  from  Europe,  consigned  to  Kim- 
berley, and  were  then  sent  by  rail  to  Johan- 
nesburg concealed  in  oil  tanks  or  in  coal 
trucks. 

After  much  anxious  thought  and  many 
long  discussions,  a  plan  was  arranged  be- 
tween Cecil  Rhodes,  Dr.  Jameson  (ad- 
ministrator of  the  Chartered  Company's 
territories  bordering  the  Transvaal  on  the 
west),  and  the  members  of  the  secret  com- 
mittee, whose  names  I  have  given  above. 

Rhodes,  as  virtual  dictator  of  the  Char- 
tered Company,  was  to  order  Jameson  to 
concentrate  on  the  border  a  force  of  1,500 
mounted  men,  fully  equipped,  ready  to  ride 
into  Johannesburg  if  and  when  called  upon. 
A  letter  was  given  to  Jameson  by  the  reform 
leaders,  explaining  the  conditions  under 
which  the  revolutionary  plot  had  origi- 
nated. It  contained  the  following  sentence: 
"  It  is  under  these  circumstances  that  we 
feel  constrained  to  call  upon  you  to  come 
to  our  aid,  should  a  disturbance  arise  here." 

[28] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

This  letter  was  left  undated,  and  it  was 
agreed  that  it  was  to  be  used  only  for  the 
purpose  of  justifying  Jameson  in  the  eyes 
of  his  directors  and  of  the  British  author- 
ities, if  he  should  actually  enter  the  Trans- 
vaal, and  that  he  should  on  no  account  cross 
the  border  unless  and  until  he  had  received 
from  me  (as  representing  Rhodes  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  Johannesburg  Committee 
on  the  other)  a  specific  request  to  come  in. 
Of  all  the  scenes  of  that  period  none  is 
more  clearly  imprinted  on  my  memory 
than  that  of  Jameson  shaking  hands  with 
me  in  the  presence  of  Rhodes  as  a  solemn 
pledge  that  he  would  not  cross  the  border 
until  I  gave  him  the  signal. 

The  exaction  of  this  promise  was  based 
on  two  considerations:  First,  that  the  ap- 
peal to  Jameson  should  come  from  a  popu- 
lation already  in  a  state  of  active  Revolu- 
tion; second,  that  as  we  on  the  spot  could 
alone  judge  of  the  exact  moment  best  suited 
for  the  rising,  so  we  alone  could  determine 
the  need  for  Jameson's  entry  and  the  hour 
when  it  should  occur.  Several  tentative 
dates  were  fixed  for  the  revolt,  but  these 
had  in  turn  to  be  postponed  on  account  of 
the   slowness  with   which   our   arms  were 

[29] 


i 


THE   TRUTH    ABOUT 

being  smuggled  in.  About  the  middle  of 
December,  1895,  messages  began  to  arrive 
from  Jameson  showing  that  the  delay  was 
getting  on  his  nerves,  and  by  Christmas  Day 
we  had  become  so  alarmed  by  the  possi- 
bility that  Jameson  might  get  out  of  hand 
that  we  sent  two  men,  by  different  routes, 
each  of  whom  delivered  to  him  our  em- 
phatic protest  against  any  unauthorized 
move  by  him ;  and  he  was  warned  both  from 
Cape  Town  and  from  Johannesburg  that  if 
he  disregarded  his  instructions  we  should 
all  be  involved  in  disaster. 

In  the  meantime,  the  Boers  began  to 
suspect  that  something  was  on  foot.  On 
December  28  President  Kruger  received 
a  deputation  of  Americans.  Among  them 
was  Mr.  Hennen  Jennings,  the  distin- 
guished mining  engineer,  who,  though  he 
was  as  anxious  as  the  rest  of  us  to  secure 
reforms,  was  not  convinced  that  peaceful 
means  had  been  exhausted.  Kruger  asked 
the  deputation: 

*'  If  a  crisis  should  occur,  on  which  side 
shall  I  find  the  Americans?" 

"  On  the  side  of  liberty  and  good  govern- 
ment," was  the  answer. 

"You   are   all   alike,"   shouted    Kruger, 

[30] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

"tarred  with  the  same  brush;  you  are 
British  in  your  hearts." 

On  Monday,  December  30,  I  was  sitting 
in  my  office  in  the  Goldfields  Building,  the 
headquarters  of  the  Reform  Committee, 
when  I  received  a  visit  from  one  of  Kru- 
ger's  intimate  associates,  a  man  named 
Sammy  Marks,  for  some  of  whose  enter- 
prises I  was  consulting  engineer.  He  was 
nervous  and  excited,  and  began  immedi- 
ately to  discuss  the  rumors  abroad.  After 
we  had  talked  for  some  time  on  the  general 
situation,  the  door  opened  and  a  clerk  came 
in  and  handed  me  a  slip  of  paper.  On  it 
was  written,  "Jameson  has  crossed  the 
border."  I  was  thunderstruck.  I  can  only 
be  thankful  that  Sammy  Marks  was  too 
much  occupied  with  his  own  thoughts 
to  notice  the  effect  of  the  shock.  It  was 
clear  to  me  that  what  he  wanted  was  to 
find  out  how  far  we  had  gone  in  arming 
ourselves. 

I  knew  that  at  that  time  we  had  less  than 
fifteen  hundred  rifles  and  practically  no 
artillery;  but  I  knew  also  that  if  this  fact 
got  to  Kruger's  ears,  after  he  had  heard  of 
Jameson^  incursion,  Johannesburg  would 
be  install tly  attacked  and  that  our  whole' 

^'  [31] 


THE   TRUTH    ABOUT 

plan  would  go  to  pieces.  My  conversation 
with  Sammy  Marks  ran  in  this  fashion: 

"Well,  Hammond,  it  looks  as  though  we 
were  going  to  have  bloodshed." 

"I  shouldn't  be  surprised." 

"They  say  you've  got  in  30,000  rifles." 

"  I  don't  know  how  many  we  've  got,  but 
I  don't  think  it's  as  many  as  that." 

"And  how^  about  artillery?  Is  it  true 
you've  got  thirty  guns?" 

"Oh,  no!  That's  an  exaggeration,  I'm 
sure." 

In  afew  minutes  Marks  left.  I  had  him 
trailed,  and,  as  I  had  foreseen,  he  went 
straight  ofif  by  special  train  to  Kruger.  I 
learned  later  that  he  had  told  the  President 
that  w.e_Jiad  at  least  30,000  rifles  and  30 
guns!  ^  - — "  '"' 

By~the  time  Marks  was  on  his  way  to 
Pretoria  the  news  of  Jameson's  Raid  had 
spread  among  the  Johannesburg  leaders. 
-The  situation  called  for  instant  action. 
The  secret  committee  was  expanded  into 
a  larger  body,  known  as  the  Reform  Com- 
mittee, which  within  a  few  hours  included 
in  its  membership  about  seventy-five  of  the 
most  prominent  men  on  the  Rand.  The 
committee  published  in  the  Johannesburg 

[32] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

Star  of  Tuesday,  December  31,  the  follow- 
ing notice: 

Notice  is  hereby  given  that  this  committee 
adheres  to  the  National  Union  Manifesto/ 
and  reiterates  its  desire  to  maintain  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  Republic.  The  fact  that 
rumors  are  in  course  of  circulation  to  the  effect 
that  a  force  [Jameson's]  has  crossed  the 
Bechuanaland  border  renders  it  necessary  to 
take  active  steps  for  the  defence  of  Johannes- 
^^rg  and  the  preservatTon  of" order.  The  conT- 
mittee'  eaFnestly  desires  that  the  inhabitants  r)»_s/x*i^>-# 
should  refrain   from  taking  any  action  which  .   '     Z' 

can  be  considered  as  an  overt  act  of  hostility        *^»'^*<>' 
against  the  Government.  ^^c-fs. 

Our  hand  had  been  forced,  and  our 
position  was  critical  in  the  extreme.  We 
had  arms  for  perhaps  1,500  men,  but  am- 
munition sufficient  only  for  a  few  hours' 
fighting.  In  face  of  a  Boer  attack  we 
should  have  been  helpless.  Many  of  the^ 
mines  had  closed  down,  and  we  had  to  fea^ 
"^rious  trouble  from  the  thousands  of  na- 
"tiyes  thus  suddenly  rendered  idle.^  The 
Government  police  having  left  the  town 
in  a  body,  our  first  task  was  to  organize  our 
own  police,  so  that  there  should  be  no  dis- 

^  Issued  on  December  26.  It  recapitulated  our  grievances 
and  stated  what  we  wanted.  The  first  demand  was  for  the  es- 
tabhshment  of  the  Republic  as  a  true  Republic,  under  a  Consti- 
tution to  be  framed  by  representatives  of  the  whole  people. 

[33] 


THE   TRUTH    ABOUT 

order.  Everyone  worked  with  a  will,  and 
by  noon  on  the  last  day  of  1895  we  had  set 
on  foot  all  the  measures  within  our  power 
to  relieve  the  situation. 

In  order  to  emphasize  the  true  quality  of 
our  position,  I  hoisted  a  Boer  flag  over  the 
Goldfields  Building,  where  all  the  meet- 
ings of  the  committee  were  held;  and  we 
^all,  then  and  there,  swore  allegiance  to  it" 
Events  now  moved  with  great  rapidity. 
On  the  evening  of  December  31,  two  dele- 
gates from  the  Boer  Government  (the  so- 
called  Olive  Branch  Delegation)    reached 
Johannesburg.    The  first  efifort  of  the  dele- 
gation was  to  treat  with  us  as  individuals. 
-  We  were,  however,  well  aware  of  the  dan- 
ger involved  in  the  success  of  such  tactics. 
It^was  not  in  our  capacity  as  individuals 
that  we   were   assembled,    but   as   a   body 
representative  of  the  Johannesburg  people. 
We  insisted  on  this  point,  and  it  was  at  last 
yielded  by  the  delegation. 
/2^v^         r    A  long  conference  with  the  Reform  Com- 
V     -        ,/  mittee  followed.  The  Boer  delegates  stated 
^     [!yi  I  that  the  Government  was  prepared  to  grant 
Ja^  Jf        us  practically  every  demand  of  the  Nat- 
v#»     |»aI  ional    Union    Manifesto;    but,    on    being 
'^0   ^^        pressed    for    details,    they    admitted    that 

^r  [34] 


A 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

Kruger  was  unaltera^iy  opposed  to  allow-  -sU 
ing  either  Roman  Catholics  or  Jews  te/  V 
become  voters  in  the  Transvaal.  ^ 

It  was  arranged  that  a  deputation  of  the 
Reform  Committee  should  go  to  Pretoria 
to  meet  a  Government  Commission.  This 
plan  marked  the  end  of  the  attempt  by  the 
Pretoria  authorities  to  deal  with  us  as  in- 
dividuals, and  thus  to  avoid  recognizing 
the  committee  as  a  provisional  government, 
which,  in  point  of  fact,  it  was.     "^"^      ' 

On    the   evening   of    December   31,    Sir   ^ 
Hercules   Robinson  —  British   High  Com-     • 
missioner  for  South  Africa,  whose  sugges- 
tion   that    he    should    go    to    Pretoria    as 
mediator   had    been    accepted    by    Kruger 
and  by  the  Reform  Committee  —  issued  a 
Proclamation    of   which    the    burden    was^ 
that  Jameson   was  ^immediately   to   retire 
from  the  Transvaal,  and  that  all   British 
subjects  were  to  refrain  from  giving  him"" 
any  countenance  or  aid  in  his  armed  viola- 
tion of  a  friendly  State.    This  Proclamation 
was,.j£legraplied  both   to   Pretoria  and  fo 
Johannesburg,  and  copies  of  it  were  sent 
by  mounted  men  to  Jameson  in  the  field. 

A  personal  friend  of  mine,  a  fellow  mem- 
ber of  the  Reform  Committee,  Mr.  Lace, 

[35] 


■f 


THE   TRUTH    ABOUT 

went  out  in  company  with  the  man  bearing 
the  Proclamation,  He  has  told  me  that 
when  he  informed  Jameson  of  the  lack 
of  arms  in  Johannesburg,  Jameson  said, 
"That's  all  right;  I  don't  need  any  help 
from  Johannesburg/'  This  conversation 
was  confirmed  to  me  by  Jameson  the  fol- 
lowing year  in  London. 

-On  January  4,  1896,  Sir  Hercules  Rob- 
inson reached  Pretoria  and  at  once  began 
those  negotiations  in  which,  as  it  seemed  to 
us^  he  was  more  anxious  to  mollify  the 
Boers  than  to  seejustice  done  to  the  Uit- 
landerS; 

In  the  meantime,  on  January  2,  Jameson's 
troopers  had  been  surrounded  by  Boer 
forces  under  Commandant  Cronje,  and  had 
surrendered.  The  efifect  of  this  on  the 
action  of  the  Johannesburgers  can  be  under- 
stood only  if  the  reader  bears  constantly 
in  mind  that  during  the  whole  of  the  ne- 
gotiations between  the  High  Commissioner, 
the  Boer  Government,  and  the  Reform 
Committee  the  fact  was  concealed  from  us 
that  under  the  terms  of  surrender  the  life 
of  Jameson  and  of  each  meinber  of  his  force 
was  guaranteed.  That  this  concealment 
was  extended  also  to  the  High  Commis- 

[36] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

sioner  is  proved  by  the  following  telegram 
from  the  High  Commissioner,  read  to  us 
by  Sir  Jacobus  de  Wet,  the  British  Diplo- 
matic Agent  in  Pretoria: 

It  is  urgent  that  you  should  inform  the 
people  of  Johannesburg  that  I  consider  that 
if  they  lay  down  their  arms  they  will  be  acting 
loyally  and  honorably,  and  that  if  they  do  not 
comply  with  my  request  they  will  forfeit  all 
claim  to  sympathy  from  Her  Majesty's  Gov- 
ernment and  from  British  subjects  throughout 
the  world,  as  the  lives  of  Jameson  and  the 
prisoners  are  now  practically  in  their  hands. 

In  face  of  such  an  appeal  there  was 
nothing  for  us  to  do  but  to  accept  the  High 
Commissioner's  advice.  We  therefore  gave 
up  our  arms  and  waited  anxiously  to  see 
what  steps  Sir  Hercules  would  take  to  meet 
a  situation  which  he  thus  described  in  a 
telegram  to  Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain  on 
January  7: 

...  I  have  just  received  a  message  from 
the  Reform  Committee  resolving  to  comply 
with  demand  of  South  African  Republic  to  lay 
down  their  arms;  the  people  placing  themselves 
and  their  interests  unreservedly  in  my  hands 
in  fullest  confidence  that  I  will  see  justice  done 
them.   .  .  . 

Our  confidence  was  certainly  misplaced. 

[37] 


402896 


\* 


J^ 


THE   TRUTH    ABOUT 

On  January  8  he  telegraphed  to  Mr.  Cham- 
berlain: "I  will  confer  with  Kruger  as  to 
redressing  the  grievances  of  the  residents 
of  Johannesburg";  and  later  the  same  day: 
*'  I  intend  to  insist  on  the  fulfilment  of 
promises  as  regards  prisoners  and  consider- 
ation of  grievances."  On  January  14  he 
left  Pretoria  for  Cape  Town;  and  on  the 
'  .  -/\\  1 6th,  in  reply  to  an  urgent  telegram  from 
r    ^  Mr.  Chamberlain  about  the  redress  of  the 

'jT'  Uitlander   grievances,   he   wired,    in   part, 

^j  "  the  question  of  concessions  to  Uitlanders 

was    never    discussed    between    us"  —  i.e.^ 
between  him  and  President  Kruger. 

The  Boers  were  very  quick  to  perceive 
the  indifTference  of  the  High  Commissioner 
and  to  draw  their  own  conclusions  from  it. 
On  January  8  and  9  sixty-four  members  of 
the  Reform  Committee,  including  myself, 
were  arrested  and  taken  to  the  Pretoria  jail. 
On  the  26th  all  were  released  on  bail  except 
Lionel  Phillips,  George  Farrar,  Colonel 
Frank  Rhodes,  Percy  FitzPatrick,  and  my- 
self. Of  the  prisoners,  twenty-three  were 
Englishmen,  sixteen  South  Africans,  nine 
Scotchmen,  six  Americans,  two  Welshmen, 
two  Germans,  and  one  each  from  Ireland, 
Australia,  Canada,  Switzerland,  Holland, 
and  Turkey. 

[38] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

It  would  be  absurd  at  the  present  time 
to  enlarge  upon  the  discomfort  and  ill- 
health  we  suffered  through  being  confined 
in  the  heat  of  summer  in  an  overcrowded 
and  unclean  prison  hitherto  used  for  Kaf- 
firs. I  had  a  violent  recurrence  of  the 
dysentery  which  I  had  contracted  a  few 
months  earlier  in  the  Zambesi  country; 
but,  through  the  indefatigable  exertions  of 
Mrs.  Hammond,  I  was  allowed  to  live 
under  guard  in  a  cottage  at  Pretoria;  later, 
on  fifty  thousand  dollars  bail,  to  return  to 
my  home  in  Johannesburg,  and,  finally,  my 
physical  condition  having  grown  steadily 
worse,  to  go  to  the  lower  altitude  and  cooler 
climate  of  Cape  Town. 

Our  trial  was  originally  set  for  A£llL24; 
As  the  day  drew  near  and  my  health  showecl 
no  signs  of  improvement,  the  anxiety  of  my 
wife,  my  friends,  and  my  medical  advisers 
showed  itself  in  their  united  efforts  to  in- 
duce me  to  stay  where  I  was,  amid  the  com- 
forts of  a  seaside  home.  The  American 
Secretary  of  State,  the  late  Richard  Olney, 
went  so  far  as  to  cable  the  Boer  Govern- 
ment on  my  behalf;  but  I  felt  that  both  on 
grounds  of  personal  and  of  national  honor 
I  should  be  in  place  with  the  other  pris- 

[39] 


THE   TRUTH    ABOUT 

oners  to  face  whatever  Fate  had  in  store 
for  us. 

An  incident  which  greatly  added  to  the 
fears  of  my  friends  was  the  action  of  a  few 
irreconcilable  Boers  who  declared  their  in- 
tention of  lynching  us  before  we  got  to 
court.  For  this  purpose  they  took  to  Pre- 
toria a  heavy  wooden  beam  from  which  five 
Boers  had  been  hanged  by  the  British  in 
1816!  This  threat  was  reported  to  me  by 
private  telegrams  from  Boer  friends  of 
mine  in  Pretoria. 

The  trial  actually  commenced  on  April  27. 
Sixty-four  of  us  had  been  arrested  and  we 
were  all  present  when  the  indictment  was 
read,  except  one  man,  who  was  ill.  Our 
position  was  a  difficult  one.  A  foreign 
judge  had  been  imported  to  preside,  a  man 
who  is  reported  to  have  boasted,  before  he 
even  reached  Pretoria,  that  he  would  make 
short  work  of  us.  The  jury  was,  of  course, 
made  up  entirely  of  Boers.  Of  our  con- 
viction not  one  of  us  had  the  slightest  doubt. 
We  were  all  accused  of  High  Treason,  but 
there  were  several  other  counts  of  a  less 
serious  nature.  It  was  very  clear  to  every- 
body that  of  the  sixty-three  prisoners  a  large 
number   had   been   followers   rather   than 

[40] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

leaders.  Our  first  concern  was,  therefore, 
to  arrange,  if  it  should  prove  possible,  that 
only  those  of  us  who  had  been  generally- 
recognized  as  the  heads  of  the  revolt  should 
incur  the  risk  of  the  extreme  penalty.  After 
a  good  deal  of  private  discussion  between 
our  counsel  and  the  State  Attorney,  it  was 
agreed  that  four  of  us  would  plead  guilty 
to  High  Treason  and  that  the  other  pris- 
oners would  be  allowed  to  plead  guilty  to 
the  minor  charges.  There  was  an  under- 
standing also  that,  in  view  of  the  pleas,  the 
State  Attorney  would  not  urge  the  Court 
to  inflict  exemplary  punishment.  What  the 
Boers  were  to  gain  as  a  quid  pro  quo  was* 
that  all  their  political  dirty  linen  would  not/^ 
be  washed  at  a  long  trial  which  would  be 
reported  by  every  important  paper  in  the 
world. 

The  trial  lasted  only  a  few  hours,  and 
almost  till  the  last  moment  everything  went 
as  well  as  we  could  have  expected.  Dr. 
Coster,  a  Hollander,  the  State  Attorney, 
made  his  formal  address,  asking  simply  that 
we  should  be  punished  according  to  law. 
Mr.  Wessels,  of  our  counsel,  made  an  elo- 
quent plea  in  our  defense,  and  took  his  seat. 
We  all  thought  that  the  judge  would  then 

[41] 


THE   TRUTH    ABOUT 

sum  up  the  case  for  the  jury;  but,  to  our 
consternation,  the  State  Attorney  sprang  to 
'  •'5nr<^  his  feet  and  claimed  the  right  to  address  the 
Court.  He  then  launched  into  a  most 
violent  attack  upon  us,  and  demanded  that 
in  passing  sentence  the  Court  should  set 
aside  the  comparatively  mild  Statute  Law 
of  the  Transvaal  and  should  apply  the  old 
Roman-Dutch  Law,  under  which  death  is 
the  only  penalty  provided  for  High  Trea- 
son. The  Court,  after  hearing  this  im- 
passioned appeal,  adjourned  until  the  fol- 
lowing day. 

I  may  borrow  from  an  account  written  by 
one  of  the  prisoners,  Sir  Percy  FitzPatrick, 
the  description  of  the  scene  in  court  when 
the  sentences  were  imposed : 

The  usual  question  as  to  whether  there  were 
any  reasons  why  sentence  of  death  should  not 
be  passed  upon  them  having  been  put  and  the 
usual  reply  in  the  negative  having  been  re- 
ceived, in  the  midst  of  silence  that  was  only 
disturbed  by  the  breaking  down  of  persons  in 
various  parts  of  the  hall  —  officials,  burghers, 
and  the  general  public  —  sentence  of  death 
was  passed,  first  on  Mr.  Lionel  Phillips,  next 
on  Colonel  Rhodes,  then  on  Mr.  George 
Farrar,  and  lastly  on  Mr.  Hammond.  The 
bearing  of  the   four  men  won  for  them  uni- 

[42] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

versal  sympathy  and  approval,  especially  un- 
der the  conditions  immediately  following  the 
death  sentence,  when  a  most  painful  scene  took 
place  in  Court.  Evidences  of  feeling  came 
from  all  parts  of  the  room  and  from  all  classes 
of  people :  from  those  who  conducted  the  de- 
fence and  from  the  Boers  who  were  to  have 
constituted  the  jury.  The  interpreter  translat- 
ing the  sentence  broke  down.  Many  of  the 
minor  officials  lost  control  of  themselves,  and 
feelings  were  further  strained  by  the  incident 
of  one  man  falling  insensible. 

The  other  prisoners  were  sentenced  to 
two  years'  imprisonment,  to  a  fine  of  ten 
thousand  dollars  each,  in  default  of  pay- 
ment to  spend  an  additional  year  in  jail, 
and  to  be  banished  from  the  State  for  three 
years. 

Throughout  South  Africa,  indeed  through- 
out the  world,  the  death  sentences  were  re- 
garded as  excessively  severe  in  view  of  all 
the  circumstances.  Petitions,  bearing  thou- 
sands of  signatures,  were  addressed  to 
Kruger  from  Cape  Colony,  Natal,  and  the 
Orange  Free  State,  while  a  deputation  com- 
posed of  more  than  two  hundred  mayors  of 
South  African  towns  set  out  for  Pretoria 
for  the  purpose  of  appealing  in  person  to 
the  President  of  the  South  African  Re- 
public. 

[43] 


THE   TRUTH   ABOUT 

The  first  consequence  of  this  agitation 
was  that  on  May  30  all  the  prisoners  who 
had  not  been  sentenced  to  death  were  of- 
fered their  liberty  if  they  would  sign  an 
appeal  for  clemency,  and  pay  $10,000  each, 
an  offer  which  was  accepted,  except  by  Mr. 
Wools-Sampson  and  Mr.  Davies,  who  re- 
fused to  sign  any  appeal.  As  soon  as  this 
matter  was  out  of  the  way,  the  Transvaal 
authorities  took  up  the  question  of  what 
should  be  done  with  the  four  leaders.  The 
first  offer  made  to  us  was  that  we  should 
each  pay  a  fine  of  $250,000  and  write  letters 
to  President  Kruger  thanking  him  for  his 
magnanimity.  These  terms  we  absolutely 
declined  to  consider,  although  the  scaffold 
for  our  execution  had  been  erected,  and 
all  other  preparations  made  with  much 
ostentation. 

After  a  good  deal  of  bargaining  we  were 
released  on  June  1 1  on  payment  of  $125,000 
each  (Kruger  having  to  go  without  his 
certificate  of  magnanimity)  and  on  our 
undertaking  to  keep  out  of  Transvaal 
politics  for  fifteen  years.  Colonel  Frank 
Rhodes  refused  to  make  this  pledge  and 
accepted  instead  a  sentence  of  fifteen  years' 
banishment. 

[44] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

So  ended  the  revolt,  so  far  as  we  Johan- 
nesburgers  were  concerned.  Time  has  amply 
vindicated  our  cause. 

In  1897  the  grievances  which  had  led  to 
the  Revolution  were  still  unredressed,  and, 
in  consequence,  a  general  financial  collapse 
of  the  Transvaal  was  in  sight.  The  Gov- 
ernment of  the  South  African  Republic, 
alarmed  at  the  prospect  of  the  mines  shut- 
ting down  and  the  moneyed  element  in  the 
country  taking  its  departure,  appointed  a 
Commission  of  Boer  officials  to  inquire  into 
the  state  of  affairs.  Its  report,  after  declar-, 
ing  that  "  the  mining  industry  must  be  held 
as  the  financial  basis,  support,  and  mainstay! 
of  the  State,"  upheld  on  almost  every  point 
the  complaints  we  had  made  in  our  repeated 
petitions;  and  suggested  remedies.  But  the 
Transvaal  Legislature  rejected  these  recom- 
mendations, and  Kruger  stigmatized  the 
Chairman  of  the  Commission,  Mr.  Schalk 
Burger,  a  member  of  the  Transvaal  Execu- 
tive Council,  as  a  traitor  for  having  signed 
the  report. 

After  two  years  of  protracted  negotia- 
tions with  the  British  Government  on  the 
subject  of  the  grievances,  Kruger  issued  an 
ultimatum  to  England,  and  the  Boer  War 

[45] 


THE   TRUTH   ABOUT 

followed.  If  final  proof  is  sought  of  the 
justice  of  the  Uitlanders'  cause,  it  is  to  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  after  the  Boers 
had  been  conquered  and  their  territories 
brought  under  the  British  flag,  England 
immediately  granted  to  the  Boers  all  the 
civil,  political,  and  religious  rights  which, 
in  the  day  of  their  power,  the  Boers  had 
denied  to  British,  American,  and  other 
nationals.  The  wisdom  of  such  a  policy  of 
fair  treatment  and  equal  justice  has  been 
made  manifest  in  the  Great  War,  in  which, 
fighting  side  by  side  with  the  British,  the 
Irish,  and  the  Americans,  are  to  be  found 
Boer  generals  and  thousands  of  Boer  volun- 
teers, whose  only  desire  is  to  uphold  the 
honor  of  that  flag  which  so  recently  they 
had  regarded  as  the  emblem  of  tyranny. 

When  the  Boer  War  was  drawing  to  a 
close  and  the  British  Government  was 
working  out  the  plan  of  a  general  settle- 
ment of  South  African  affairs,  I  happened 
to  be  in  London.  A  dinner  was  given  me  by 
my  valued  friend,  the  late  Earl  Grey,  who 
afterwards  became  Governor-General  of 
Canada.  Among  the  other  guests  were 
many  of  the  British  Colonial  statesmen  then 
gathered  in  London  for  the  Colonial  Con- 

[46] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

ference.  In  responding  to  the  toast  of  my 
health  I  spoke  of  the  South  African  situa- 
tion, and  urged  the  view  that  only  by  gen- 
erous treatment  of  the  vanquished  Boers 
could  a  South  African  Commonwealth 
arise  out  of  the  ashes  of  the  conflict.  From 
the  warmth  with  which  this  opinion  was  re- 
ceived, and  from  later  conversations  with 
a  number  of  those  present,  I  am  encouraged 
to  believe  that  my  voice  was  not  without  its 
share  of  influence  in  determining  that  mag- 
nanimous policy  which  has  since  welded 
South  Africa  into  a  united  Empire. 

As  I  look  back  after  twenty  years  upon 
the  events  I  have  described,  my  conscience 
justifies  the  part  I  played  in  them.  Given 
the  same  conditions,  I  would  again  act  as 
I  then  acted,  and  should  again  be  sustained 
by  the  firm  conviction  that  I  was  striving  to 
the  best  of  my  ability  to  maintain  and  to 
extend  those  imperishable  principles  of 
fair-play  which  are  in  a  peculiar  sense  the 
heritage  of  the  British  Empire  and  of  the 
United  States. 

The  moral  quality  of  an  action  cannot, 
of  course,  be  made  to  depend  upon  the 
efifects  which  flow  from  it;  but  it  is  pre- 
cisely from  such  effects  that  we  properly 
[47] 


THE   TRUTH    ABOUT 

estimate  the  wisdom  or  folly  of  a  political 
decision. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  without  a  good  deal  of 
satisfaction  that  I  observe  how  events  have 
justified  the  views  of  the  Johannesburg 
Committee  and  the  decision  of  the  British 
Government,  in  1899,  to  join  issue  with 
President  Kruger  on  the  broad  question  of 
justice  and  fair  treatment  for  the  whole 
population  of  the  Transvaal. 

The  consequences  of  that  view  and  of 
that  decision  were  the  Boer  War  and  the 
final  establishment  of  the  Union  of  South 
Africa  as  a  democratic  State  within  the 
British  Empire. 

The  debt  which  the  world  owes  in  this 
matter  to  the  Johannesburg  Reformers  and 
to  the  British  Government  can  be  brought 
home  to  the  reader  by  stating  what  would 
have  happened  if  the  Johannesburgers  had 
remained  supine  under  the  yoke  of  Kruger- 
ism  and  England  had  remained  deaf  to  the 
cry  of  her  oppressed  sons. 

Who  can  doubt  that  if  the  Boer  War  had 
not  broken  out  in  1899,  Germany  would 
have  arranged  that  it  should  break  out  in 
1914?  But  reflect  what  a  totally  different 
affair  this  would  have  been.     In  the  inter- 

[48] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

vening  years  Germany  had  built  strategic 
roads  in  her  South  West  African  territory, 
as  a  military  threat  to  the  whole  British 
position  from  Cape  Town  to  the  head 
waters  of  the  Nile. 

Recent  disclosures  enable  us  to  see  the 
vast  extent  and  the  infamous  nature  of 
Germany's  African  ambitions.  She  was  to 
build  up  an  enormous  legion  of  black  sol- 
diers, an  inexhaustible  reservoir  of  cannon- 
fodder.  With  her  strategic  roads,  with  her 
disciplined  host  of  native  levies,  with  the 
aid  of  a  well-armed,  skillful,  and  courag- 
eous Boer  army,  Germany  would  have 
struck  a  blow  in  South  Africa  in  1914 
which  would  have  overwhelmed  all  pos- 
sible opposition  on  the  part  of  the  British 
South  Africans  and  the  pro-British  Boers, 
and  would  have  given  her  that  world- 
victory  which  she  so  nearly  secured  by  the 
suddenness  of  her  attack  upon  Belgium  and 
France. 

Her  treasury  would  have  been  replen- 
ished with  the  gold  of  South  Africa;  naval 
bases  at  Durban  and  Cape  Town  would 
have  placed  her  submarines  within  easy 
striking  distance  of  every  sea  route  south  of 
the   equator;   the   resources   of   the   South 

[49] 


THE   JAMESON    RAID 

American  Continent  would  no  longer  have 
been  at  the  disposal  of  her  enemies;  the 
participation  of  India  and  Australia  in  the 
war  would  have  been  seriously  hampered. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say,  then,  that  the 
Boer  War,  by  removing  the  possibility  of 
a  formidable  German  military  and  naval 
base  in  what  is  now  the  Union  of  South 
Africa,  contributed  in  no  small  measure 
to  the  approaching  German  defeat  which  is 
to  rescue  the  world  from  a  Teuton  over- 
lordship. 


[50] 


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